Marketing with Squidoo

For the last several months, I’ve been busy promoting some brick and mortar businesses in my adopted hometown of Murphy, NC.

These businesses are owned by people who live in our community and own and operate their businesses — a task that takes most of their time and energy.

I have come to believe it is very important to support these local businesses and to keep money flowing in our own community instead of sending it off to the home offices of big, multinational corporations.

So, I spent months  planning my new Murphy Gold site.

I already have a couple of lenses for Murphy, NC and I added links to my Murphy Gold site and syndicated the RSS feed on them: Murphy NC 28906 and Murphy NC.

Then I created a new Squidoo lens for Murphy Gold to help drive early traffic to the site, before I add enough traffic-building pages there and the search engines start sending the bulk of the visitors.

For years, I’ve been promoting local businesses, but this is different. Now, I’m promoting just a few businesses and only if they pay me up-front. There are some rules, however, and I won’t promote a business unless the owner is commited to supporting the community and doing his or her best to provide quality service to their customers. Eventually, it will require at least two recommendations from existing Murphy Gold business owners before I’ll even consider adding a new business to the site.

This project is based on a concept of joint venture co-marketing, where each business provides special offers and the other business owners promote the businesses they recommended and others they enjoy working with. Since there is only one business accepted per category, that should lessen the feeling of competition and increase cooperation.

As each business is added, I build a new Squidoo lens as well as one or more pages on the Murphy Gold site.

By doing this, I can build traffic to the new site in just a few days, and the new business pages will be indexed and  searchable through Google and other search engines in less than a month.

It has been an exciting project to plan and launch, but it hasn’t gone without its share of obstacles and setbacks. By concentrating on each, in turn,  they can be overcome.

I’ve been planning this  since January 2009 and started implementing the site on July 8, 2009. I’m very pleased with the progress that has been made on the site and lenses in just five weeks.

Act on your  dream!

JD

Did you know that thefluffanutta offers an RSS feed of all your Squidcasts at his SquidUtils.com site?

It’s pretty easy to set up.

I just added an RSS feed widget to this blog that syndicates my 10 latest SquidCasts. You can see it in the right column, just below the list of my top 15 most popular lenses.

Total time to add it to a blog that supports RSS feeds is under 15 minutes if it’s your first time doing it. It’s even faster with a little experience.

Of course, you can also syndicate your SquidCasts on your lenses and even via email, if you want.

I’ve written more about this on my primary blog:

Did you know you can syndicate your SquidCasts by RSS and email?

This is a valuable way to increase links to your lenses and maybe get more visitors.

Act on your dream!

JD

Last week, I thought I’d found a solution for adding active AWeber subscription forms on Squidoo lenses. Unfortunately, although the method worked great, Squidoo is killing it.

Both AWeber and Squidoo play a large part in my plans for next year and I hope there will be a way to solve this problem.

Today, I wrote an open letter to Tom Kulzer, CEO and Founder of AWeber, and Seth Godin, Founder of Squidoo, asking them if they can find a way to solve this problem. You can see the lens at:

Can AWeber and Squidoo Work Together?

I invite your feedback and opinions. Please vote in the polls and participate in the duel.

If this is a subject that interests you, please help me spread the word to other AWeber members and Squidoo lensmasters.

Act on your dream!

JD

In a previous post on this blog, I wrote about adding subscribe forms on our Squidoo lenses:

Squidoo module request – Sign-up forms for Aweber mailing lists

Last week, Lewis Smile added a comment to the post and told me my dream was answered. Today, I finally found enough time to see what he was talking about.

You can read more on my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing blog about how I followed Lewis’ method to add a live Aweber mailing list subscribe form on one of my Squidoo lenses:: How to add an Aweber subscribe form to your Squidoo lens.

Act on your dream!

JD

It feels like  it’s been just shy of forever since I’ve had the time to post anything here.

I was wondering who will become a new Giant Squid this weekend. I’m  looking forward to welcoming them to the club/group/whatever we are.

Act on your dream!

JD

Do you want to get started in social networking, but don’t have the time or expertise needed to do it yourself? Now, you don’t have to. You can have your lenses built and promoted and then transferred to you, all in a couple of weeks or so.

Tiffany Dow and Lewis Smile – experts on Squidoo – are now at your service.

Learn more by reading Two Squidoo Titans unite to build your lenses for you on my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing blog.

Act on your dream!

JD

Do you want to attract more visitors to your sites?

Of course you do. I do, too.

Some people tell you the secret or the trick to more traffic. You are probably safer if you ignore them.

Tiffany Dow offers some good advice for building a natural flow of visitors to your lenses, pages, blogs, sites, and whereever else you are promoting something.

It all begins with good keyword research and ends with long-term commitment to dominate your niche.

Her article offers some simple advice that anyone can implement, if you have the drive to do it: Basic Good Old Traffic Advice.

Act on your dream!

JD

Megan Casey has a lens with tips for customizing your new Squidoo profile page. You can also join the duel and suggest additional features.

See it here: How to rock your lensmaster bio page.

Act on your dream!

JD

I was working on some of my Squidoo lenses yesterday and I clicked on my lensmaster bio page to look at something.  What I was looking for, I don’t remember, because the page was totally different from what it was the last time I saw it.

Little did I realize then that this was only the surface of the iceberg,  so to speak.

I’m not a person who likes surprises. I don’t like surprise parties, surprise problems, or surprises on my web sites or sites with which I am affiliated.

Still, if we learned anything from Heraclitus, change is inevitable  and we can’t step into the same river twice, right?

So, I decided to embrace the change and get the most from it. I went looking for more information and found an active discussion on SquidU.com and learned that Megan Casey had written a new post on the SquidBlog: New lensmaster bio page, live now!

That’s where I learned that I could make further modifications to my lensmasters bio page by updating the profile page on my Squidoo dashboard. You can do it, too, by editing your profile at:

http://www.squidoo.com/member/profile

It took only a few minutes to add links to my blog, Twitter profile, Facebook page, Lulu storefront, Cafepress shop, and several other sites I enjoy promoting. I was able to feature up to five of my lenses, and of course we can edit our biographical sketch that shows up on this page and others in the Squidoo world.

I’m happy with my new lensmaster profile page and I like the changes and options that are available for us.

I still don’t like surprises, however.

Act on your dream!

JD

If you don’t already know it, I’m a huge fan of Site Build It!, Ken Evoy, and their 5 Pillar Affiliate Program.

I’ve joined and tested hundreds of affiliate programs, and the 5 Pillar Affiliate Program remains at the top of the list.

You can earn generous commissions from each sale, and recurring commissions from each annual renewal. This is true lifetime commissions, and the folks at SiteSell go out of their way to make sure you are credited for the sales you make.

It is a two-tier program, so you can earn residual commissions each time someone you refer to the affiliate program makes a sale.

SiteSell offers outstanding training, a regular newsletter for affiliates, great promotional tools, dedicated affiliate managers, and free members-only forums.

The 5 Pillar Program remains one of my highest paying and most reliable income streams.

Have you joined, yet?

It’s free, you know.

Come learn more about the Site Build It! 5 Pillar Affiliate Program.

If I were going to recommend only one affiliate program, this is it.

Act on your dream!

JD

My friend, TeaLady, has a great lens on Squidoo that presents lots of information about the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

If you are interested in the Olympics, visit her Olympics News lens for up-to-date news, photos, and much more.

Don’t forget to rate it and leave your comments!

Well done, Pat.

Act on your dream!

JD

After years of earning some nice commission checks from about a dozen companies, I’m ready to move my marketing efforts to a new level, and that involves building mailing lists for each of the products I like and recommend.

Instead of having a one-time opportunity to make a sale, I intend to attract people who are interested in the products I promote and persuade them to trade their valuable contact information in exchange for good information about how to put the product to profitable use.

The goal, of course, is to build relationships with new prospects, provide quality information about the product and how they can use it, and to convert a percentage of those prospects into customers – hopefully happy customers.

This takes a lot of work, but email marketing has been proven time and again to be the best way to educate your readers and help some of them make the decision to purchase.

Now, I want this to be top-quality all the way, so I’m only using Aweber to manage my lists and will only send emails to people who have opted-in to the list and confirmed the decision.

I was looking for a simple way to add a subscribe form to a Squidoo lens, but neither the javascript nor the HTML form method provided by Aweber works in a lens.

After scratching my head, I’m testing a sign-up form on my Private Success Team lens.

This isn’t the optimum way to do this, but I have an image of the subscribe form on the lens. When you click the image, it opens a new window (or tab) with one of my splash pages that has a live subscribe form. Eventually, if this works, I’ll open a link to a page with a subscribe form and more information about the product, but the splash page is convenient, for now.

I was thinking that it would be great if Squidoo and Aweber could work together to build a module that makes it easy for us to add a subscribe form to our lens.

Perhaps there is already a way to do this that I don’t know about. If so, I’d really appreciate a link to it.

So, what do you think? Does what I’m currently doing look like a viable option, for now?

Do you know who to contact at Squidoo to suggest such a module?

I look forward to your feedback and opinions.

Act on your dream!

JD

My Marketing With Squidoo lens has been sadly neglected for far too long.

This morning, I updated the information in the lens and added two new Plexo link lists. The first links to other Squidoo lenses that offer helpful tips and techniques for lensmasters to improve their marketing efforts using Squidoo lenses. The second links to blogs and websites with similar information.

If you know of outstanding lenses with this type of information, please add them to the list. We’re just getting started with this.

If you know of outstanding blogs or websites with information to help our fellow lensmasters do better with their Squidoo marketing efforts, I hope you’ll add links to the second list, just above the comments.

Don’t forget to vote for your favorites.

Act on your dream!

JD

thefluffanutta has created a great lens: Squidoo Guide: Linking Tips.

It’s not a very big lens, but it includes some good tips for linking to parts of your lens that may not be obvious, such as a particular module.

There are also several utility links on every lens that you can improve upon by making them more obvious on your lens. These include Add to Favorites, Join my Fanclub, Lensroll, Contact Lensmaster, and one he missed: Email this lens.

I’ve updated my lensography for John Dilbeck and added a new module right after the intro with the utility links.

I don’t think anyone is going to miss the buttons.

What do you think? Useful, too much, or what?

You’re free to copy the code I used and modify it to suit your needs.

Please host the graphics on your own server or wherever you store images.

Do you think this adds value to the lens or detracts from it?

Act on your dream!

JD

TreasuresByBrenda has a very thought provoking lens called Your Life Sentence ~~ Six Word Quotations and I challenge you to tell your life story in six words.

She also has a blog posting about it at: Your Life Sentence ~~~ A Challenge, Part 2

I’m trying to sum up my life sentence, but I’m still not satisfied with what I have right now. When I work it out, I’ll post my life sentence to her lens. So far, I have:

“Pursuing my dream on my schedule.”

A couple of the members of our Squidoo Marketing Community have posted their life sentences on the lens.

How about you?

Act on your dream!

JD